Tuesday, 1st August 2006

Memorial site in Birkenau
יד זיכרון בבירקנאו

















the Birkenau monument
אנדרטה בבירקנאו

















one of the tracks into Birkenau
מסילה לתוך בירקנאו

















The gallows in Auschwitz. Its final client was Rudolf Hess in 1946 (not the one who died at Spandau prison in the 1980s, of old age...) The commander of Auschwitz shared that name and was caught, tried and executed after the war.
הגרדום באושויץ. הלקוח האחרון פה היה רודולף הס בשנת 1946. כמובן לא רודולף הס שמת בגיל מופלג בכלא שפנדאו בברלין בשנות ה-80 אלא מפקד אושוויץ שנשא את אותו השם



Thanks to my enforced early night, I am up very early. The minivan should pick me up at 9:00am, then few more people from the city centre and take us to Auschwitz. I test my visa card at a nearby ATM - it works! The burly driver is punctual, and I get the honour of sitting next to him all the way. This proves to be an error: I never asked for, or expected a rollercoaster ride but that is what I get. The man feels around for his lighter, not easy when your other free hand is holding a cellphone and you're trying to run over some frightened pedestrians on a (green light) crossing. He criss-crosses his way on every road with more than one lane, and is determined to race to the bitter end every other vehicle on the road. How I manage to fall asleep for the better part of the journey is a mystery to all but the keenest of psychiatrists. What little view I do get is lovely - all very rural and aching for an artist to paint it.
The visitor centre in Auschwitz is packed with people, and seems to be chaotic. My small group - a U.K. residing Irish couple, and a cute thirtysomething Swede and his youthful mother are my only mates. Our driver runs us like a demented shepherd this way and that, sits us down, walks us in circles (I may be embellishing a little...) eventually we are shown into the auditorium where the official visit starts with a screening of a short film taken during the very first days after the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a disturbing, even harrowing film, yet I can't help feeling the whole presentation is designed to avoid upsetting the visitors too much, or, even worse, boring them with a lot of historical facts and figures. We are then attached to a larger group, one of very many, and our walk through what remains of Auschwitz begins. It is a tough experience, and I still feel disappointed that our guide, a nice enough bloke, is just churning out the same text he speaks almost with no need to think about it as he must have memorised it over time. I don't mind the dull delivery, but I feel cheated out of some of the experience because the commentary often drifts to the anecdotal, almost trivial, with a clear emphasis on fascinating, at times heroic events involving mainly non-Jewish Polish people. As a Jew and the son of two Auschwitz survivors I feel like the very core of my experience here is missing. What did I want to happen? what did I expect? The infamous blocs, home to unbelievable inhumanity, are now surrounded by lush green grass, with tall, beautiful trees along them, making the place look like some suburban avenues. My dear friend Rafi had half jokingly said before my trip that you should only visit there when it rains. Well, today the sun is out and the weather is lovely. Rafi wouldn't stand for this kind of nonsense for a minute!
With the chaos I have by now come to expect we all pile up onto the bus that will ferry us over to Birkenau - Auschwitz 2. It's some 3 kms away, built by the Nazis when the original camp proved too small for the scale of killing they planned. It is said to be 20 times bigger than the first one, and it is indeed shocking to see the enormity of that place. Most of the blocs there have been demolished, partly by local folk desperate for firewood and building materials. The ones remaining intact are grim and dark, and it is almost impossible to imagine the living hell endured by the inmates of that place - had it not been so fully documented by the SS themselves, for as long as they felt they would never be called to account for their crimes.
Our guided visit is at an end. All five of us are met by our scary driver. This time I sit at the very back of the car. Let some other sap sit up front with psycho driver. Our maniacal journey back to town is easier to stomach now that I have my own seat. I look at the countryside rolling back through the window. It looks so serene, so picturesque. How different could it have looked when my mom and dad were incarcerated only a few kilometres away, condemned to death through slave labour and starvation for no other reason than being Jewish. Did the church bells still ring on Sundays, Could my parents hear them in the distance? Could they listen out for them?